Tracks
by Mottlei
Summary: Marlene never knew that joining Lynn on one of her trips to take down a few Erudite-Dauntless would end up with her almost-death and a train track-side kiss. Short Marlynn Oneshot.


**For those who have not fully read Insurgent, this will hold spoilers, sorry.**

 _Ship: Marlynn  
Universe: Divergent (During the War but it's sorta AU-ish)  
Book Timeline: After the attack on Dauntless that left Lynn's sister paralyzed. (Which must be after Candor and if not it is now).  
Movie Timeline:I rEaLlY dOn'T kNoW iTs JuSt PaSt CaNdOr Or WhAtEvEr._

* * *

Lynn was out for revenge.

Who knew why Marlene, soft-hearted, gentle, pure Marlene was even out here at her side. Faithfulness, Lynn supposed. Yet she could've been out with Uriah at this moment of time doing whatever he was doing, which was probably something absurd like dangling from the Hancock building by his belt and chanting 'Ba Ba Black Sheep', and be taking a shot for every time he said 'ba'. Lynn snorted at the idea. Another person she could've been doing something with is Tris, but she was wrapped up in some angst and her and that scary boyfriend of hers kept fighting like cat and dog. That earned another snort. Lynn never understood boys. She never understood girls either. Oh well, c'est la vie.

She was distracting herself with pacing around in tight circles in the canteen of the school. Her purge of Erudite-Dauntless, her quest to eradicate them from the face of the Earth, had taken her to the one place she had never expected to be again. She would've moved on to some other building, perhaps closer to Erudite, she had the ammunition to take them on and surely wasn't a dumbass. If it weren't for Marlene.

Marlene was perched on one of the tables with her knees tucked in close to her, one arm wrapped around her legs and the other hand tightly gripping her mousy brown hair. Her gun was behind her, and a trail of blood from someone Lynn had dragged out of Marlene's sight earlier. Lynn stopped her pacing and made her way over to Marlene, setting her gun down next to Marlene's and then sitting down next to the girl herself.

"Are you-"

"I'm not in the mood to talk," Marlene said sharply.

Lynn nodded in response. Marlene had already explained the probable reason for this to her; of all the Dauntless under the simulation that day, she was amongst the first to be shuttled out to Abnegation. And amongst the first to open fire into the Abnegation. She must've killed about three she said. It destroyed her to be awake and only able to do nothing. The most she was able to do was make herself hesitate for a moment before pulling the trigger on the third person. It was hard to convince Marlene it wasn't her fault.

Marlene had also never seen her parents since the attack.

It took another while for Marlene to let her legs go from her own embrace and to take a hand from her hair. Marlene was quick then to readjust her position and turn around towards Lynn, wrapping both of her arms around her and pulling her close. Lynn didn't reject the embrace and halfheartedly returned it. She wasn't normally one for touching people with more than a fist, but Marlene obviously had need of her now.

They sat like that for a while, until Lynn was almost at the point of complaining about Marlene's cheekbone digging into her head.

"At least your head doesn't feel like it belongs to a hedgehog anymore,"

Lynn barked out a laugh.

"Since when have you been feeling hedgehogs? Is there something you want to tell me?" Lynn said back,

"Perhaps," Marlene said gently, moving her head off of Lynn's.

Lynn looked up and locked eyes with Marlene. It was like some of the super terrible books they used to read in school; Lynn couldn't look away from Marlene's eyes, and if they were the hot female protagonist and her steamy hot male crush, they might as well be making out right now. But none of them were guys, so there went that option.

"Are you ready to go?" Lynn asked after a short while.

Marlene nodded, and removed her arms from around Lynn and stood up. Lynn kept a close eye on her for a few seconds before getting up herself. Just to make sure she was okay. When she was sure Marlene was, Lynn slipped off the table, picking her gun and Marlene's up and passed Marlene her gun. And they set off again, towards what could've, what should've, been death.

* * *

On the way home, they had to walk alongside the train tracks.

Lynn's legs were still jittering with adrenaline and sheer terror because dear lord; Marlene almost died.

It seemed to sting harder, stab deeper than the thought of Shauna's paralysis did. If Marlene died, Lynn didn't know what she would do without her. And Lynn had stuttered that out when she hauled Marlene back into the cover of that corner, after having her heart almost stop completely at the sight of the bullet hole in Marlene's jacket that a few milliseconds later could've been in Marlene's gut.

But Marlene was right beside her, currently mellow after the shock of being shot at and almost dying faded. The silence between them wasn't awkward, but of course wasn't to last.

"Did you mean what you said back there?" Marlene offered quietly.

Lynn froze and resisted making some stupid pun about 'stopping in her tracks' and the train tracks beside them. Just one glance towards Marlene told her that the other girl was serious. So she took a deep breath and decided now she had to be serious about this, and now a time was as good as any because one more moment and she could possibly lose Marlene to someone like Uriah.

"I-I did," Lynn said.

Marlene turned to fully face Lynn.

"Is there something _you_ want to tell _me_?"

Lynn opened her mouth to respond but not before Marlene spoke again, telling her it was probably best to sit down, and the grassy slope at the side of the train tracks seemed as good a place as any. Marlene took her jacket off and sat on that, sticking a finger through the bullet hole as she waited for Lynn who's colour currently matched the bright red the Amity always wore. Marlene, while not a genius, could tell where this conversation would be going. It felt dangerous, and not in an enticing way like it felt when you were told to have no more sweets, but of course, it was so enticing and dangerous you'd do it anyway, and pulling off a successful sweet heist was the most glorious feeling she'd ever felt.

But she could suppose that Lynn could be sweet, in an awfully strange and odd way. No, wait, Lynn was never sweet. Or maybe she had just never seen it. Marlene knew the two of them, despite sharing their entire childhoods, still had a lot to learn about each other. But that didn't mean she didn't know Lynn was dangerous, especially now. Marlene had accompanied her so that at least Lynn didn't die without at least a friend and witness beside her. Now there was a stupid word: 'friend' what the hell did it even mean anymore? Could that even be what they would see each other as after this conversation? She felt like whacking her head off of something to try and give herself even a brief moment of clarity. Some part of her knew, however, that if she wanted Lynn and her to work in _that_ way, all she had to do was one little thing.

It would appear that Lynn had lost the concept of language at this point if her stuttering was anything to go on. Everything came out in useless sputters, like a dying car. She'd take a stab at one sentence, screw it up, take a shot at another, fail completely and so on. It was cute, in a way. Seeing sharp-tongued Lynn, who was ever ready to fire sarcasm at whoever and whenever to lose it completely over one little sentence.

So with a sigh, Marlene leant forwards and softly turned Lynn's head to hers with a soft grip on her chin. The next part was quick. It would've felt like it never happened if they never felt so _much_. Marlene gently touched their lips together in a brief kiss.

"I kinda like you too, dumbass,"

* * *

 **My thought processes while writing this:**

 **-Uh, it's gay.**

 **-Kinda want a lot of angst.**

 **-No, that would be too much we can't have everyone dying in one day.**

 **-Teens in a war zone shouldn't be as okay as they are in the book, yo.**

 **-IF. YOUR. SHIP. DOESN'T. KISS. BY. THE. TRAIN. TRACKS. DO. THEY. EVEN. EXIST?**

 **-We're doing this.**


End file.
